West Ham midfielder Michail Antonio has expressed his support for Liverpool’s wantaway forward Phillipe Coutinho. The Brazilian submitted a transfer request last week, after Barcelona submitted two large bids for the player- both of which were rejected by Liverpool.
Antonio, speaking to TalkSport radio station, said that any player would heed the call if Barcelona came knocking, “Can you give someone a bad name for wanting to be ambitious? For wanting to move onto bigger things?
“Can you say that’s a bad person or can you say that person is ambitious, that person wants to do stuff, that person wants to move on with his life? You need to leave because you can go onto better things.
“In a normal job, if there was a chance for you to get promoted, are you going to say: ‘no, no, no – I want to stay in the exact same spot I’m in now.’ Or, are you going to strive and move forward and be better?
“I have a degree of sympathy (for Coutinho). He did every single thing he possibly could do. He stayed, he trained, he worked hard – he stayed away from it as much as he could and didn’t make a single comment– and Liverpool say: ‘No we’re keeping him.’
“And then he handed in a transfer request because he had no other option. But he’s been the perfect servant for them for the past three or four years. If the player wasn’t doing well, the club would try and get rid of him.”
